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Dec. 18 --The White House Dec. 18 released a
report with dozens of recommendations from an independent
panel on ways to overhaul U.S. surveillance policies amid a growing
privacy debate.

The report, which is dated Dec. 12, provides more than 40
recommendations, including ending the National Security Agency's
practice of maintaining a vast database of U.S. phone customer
records. Although promising to look at the proposals, the White
House hasn't committed to taking action on any of them.

The report was initially expected to be released after a review
scheduled to be completed in January, 2014. However, it was
unveiled early due to inaccurate and incomplete reports in the
press about the document's content, according to White House press
secretary Jay Carney.

"We felt it was important to allow people to see the full report
to draw their own conclusions," Carney said Dec. 18, during his
daily press briefing.

On Aug. 9, the president unveiled a plan that included forming
the review group . Within weeks, the White House named the members
of the group .

On Dec. 13, White House National Security Council spokeswoman
Caitlin Hayden said in a statement that although the report had
been submitted to the president, it would not be made public for
several weeks.

Review Process Expected.

Over the next several weeks, the White House will be reviewing
the report and considering a path forward, including sorting
through which recommendations will be implemented, which might
require further study and which won't be pursued, according to
Carney.

"It's a substantive, lengthy report, and it merits serious
review and assessment," he added. "When we finish the internal
review, the overall internal review in January, the President will
deliver remarks to outline the outcomes of our work."

The report, which is more than 300 pages, was prepared by the
Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies,
established by President Barack Obama in August in response to
outrage over controversial NSA surveillance activities, including a
program that involves the bulk collection of phone records under
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The review panel briefed Obama in the Situation Room of the
White House Dec. 18, before the report was publicly released. Panel
members include: Richard Clarke, a national security adviser in
previous administrations; Michael Morell, deputy director of the
Central Intelligence Agency under Obama; Geoffrey Stone, University
of Chicago law professor; Cass Sunstein, former administrator of
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Obama; and
Peter Swire, former President Clinton's chief counselor for privacy
from 1999-2001 in the Office of Management and Budget.

In her statements before the report was released, Hayden said
the "Review Group's report draws on the group members' considerable
expertise in intelligence, counterterrorism, civil liberties, law
and privacy matters and on their consultations with the U.S.
government, privacy and civil liberties advocates, and the private
sector."

"This meeting offered President Obama an opportunity to hear
directly from the group's members and discuss the thinking behind
the 46 recommendations in their report," the White House said in a
separate Dec. 18 statement. "The President noted that the group's
report represented a consensus view, particularly significant given
the broad scope of the members' expertise in counterterrorism,
intelligence, oversight, privacy and civil liberties."

"The message to the NSA is
now coming from every branch of government and from every corner of
our nation: 'You have gone too far.' "

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman,
Senate Judiciary Committee

The administration won't be in a position to comment on the
recommendations while it is reviewing them, according to the
statement. "In January, the President looks forward to speaking to
the American people, as well as to the international community, to
outline the outcomes of our work, including our plans to address
the Review Group's recommendations," the statement said.

Recommendations.

The panel's recommendations included:

enacting legislation to terminate the storage of bulk
telephony metadata by the government under Section 215 and
transition "as soon as reasonably possible" to a system in which
such information is held instead either by private providers or by
a private third party;

adopting a policy that prohibits the government in any way
from subverting, undermining, weakening or making vulnerable
generally available commercial software;

creating a privacy and civil liberties policy official located
both in the White House national security staff and the Office of
Management and Budget; and

making the director of NSA a Senate-confirmed position.

The report was hailed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has criticized the NSA's activities and
called for surveillance changes.

"The message to the NSA is now coming from every branch of
government and from every corner of our nation: 'You have gone too
far,' " Leahy said in a Dec. 18 statement. "The bulk collection of
Americans' data by the U.S. government must end. This momentous
report from the President's closest advisers is a vindication of
the efforts of a bipartisan group of legislators that has been
working for years to protect Americans' privacy by reining in these
intelligence authorities."

Obama Meets With Industry Leaders.

Obama discussed NSA surveillance issues during a Dec. 17 meeting
with leaders of some of the nation's top technology companies,
including Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Apple Inc. and Twitter Inc.

"We appreciated the opportunity to share directly with the
President our principles on government surveillance that we
released last week and we urge him to move aggressively on reform,"
the companies said in a joint statement.

According to the White House, Obama made clear his belief in an
"open, free, and innovative" Internet and listened to the group's
concerns and recommendations.

Ed Black, president and chief executive officer of the Computer
and Communications Industry Association, said the meeting was a
clear signal that the White House now understands that there are
some "very large and important issues at stake."

"There are ramifications for the freedom and openness of the
Internet and the credibility of both the U.S. government and U.S.
companies," Black told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 18. "Previously, I don't
think these issues were properly evaluated in terms of the costs
and benefits of various surveillance policies."

Meanwhile, a federal district court Dec. 16 for the first time
ruled that plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of a NSA
telephone surveillance program had demonstrated a sufficient
likelihood of success on the merits to grant injunctive relief
(see related report).

By Alexei Alexis

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexei Alexis in
Washington at aalexis@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Heather
Rothman at hrothman@bna.com

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